NuTex Reform
by Peremptory Decisions
Summary: If the NuTex colony went back to normal after all of the Ranger households left, what would happen? Never were thoughts quite so dangerous in this backwards colony! Only one chapter until someone reviews. From Elizabeth Moon's books


A/N: Ugh. I have been reading both Tamora Pierce fics and Elizabeth Moon books. Rules of engagement made me think... Okay, so women aren't really supposed to fight. Does this sound of something? Click click! TORTALL (until Alanna came along, and they also didn't seem as bad). So... It's a combination of both ideas, a Prima comes up with an idea of a Women's Movement on Our Texas, it is faced with hate and opression, and who knows what will happen to her! (Okay, that's kind of a summary of everything.) If anyone has a good name for this, please review with it and I will credit the name to you!  
  
Summary: The new Prima Bowie has gotten ideas from nearby children of the housekeepers, about a blondie girl who excaped with a servant of this very household, who knew arms, and then a small escort of Fleet came to bring the four children that they were caring for that were from the girl's old ship came. There was more women than men, and they all knew their weapons and machines and space-travel. Pained with the lonliest thoughts of her husband, the new Ranger Bowie, she retreats to her secluded room with thoughts of things to come... Who knew just thinking could be so... Dangerous!  
  
Disclamer: The setting of the story comes from Elizabeth Moon, I own nothing of the world except for the few charactures that I had to make up, including the new Bowies. This takes place a short while after Rules of Engagement, during what I will refer to as... The calm before the storm.   
  
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Prologue:  
  
The newest Prima Bowie was sitting in her special room, filled with a couch and a rocking chair. She sank down on the couch and stared at the chair, thinking of her husband, Michael Tanner. He was off on military duty, patrolling the airways, just in case Fleet decided they had unfinished buisness here. There were a new group of Rangers, and they all were trying to heal their egos and bring back fame. The best thing that the power-hungry rangers could think of were re-capturing that blonde girl. Whoever she was. Prima didn't know why so much of a fuss was being made over a girl. Some called her Space Girl, but she didn't care about that. Supposedly, she had known military tactics (or at least some of them) and was very, VERY, important to the R.S.S. She mumbled to herself, and sipped at her tea. She wasn't supposed to be idle, but she had a headache, and was listening to Parson Wells preach. Again. He was so dull, and yet he tried to fire up the town into going and trying to assassinate all of the leaders of the Familias Regent for capturing their old Rangers.  
  
What was worse than being alone, was the thought that any second, Michael could be dead. Sure, they could try and contact her, but she didn't know how to use the Vidscreen and was deathly afraid of Michael's brothers. They were a scary lot. She always had to tell herself that Michael was safe and sound, just gliding along in space, bored. Then again, as proven by the old Ranger Bowie, boredom and greed were seldom a good thing...  
  
She knew she should feel proud, that it was considered that the Rangers were giving up staying with their families to roam the spaceways. But still... It didn't seem like much, she often was worn out by the end of the day. Also, another feeling that you just aren't allowed to feel here at Our Texas.  
  
It seemed as if Michael didn't really live at this house anymore, he was rarely on leave, about a month of the year, seperated into about 15 weekends during Texan holidays. It didn't seem like enough, but she had to deal with it. She went into this room more than usual, even though it still breaks her heart to see the rocker empty. The rocker is actually more comfortable than the couch, but it was Michael's chair. All she did now in this room where she used to talk to him was to mumble to herself and to think. She never allowed servants in, she cleaned the room herself.  
  
She was now lost in thought, spinning in dreams and the future. It all just spun around her. A knock at the door, and she came back to reality, just for a moment. She sat perfecftly still, and waited for footsteps to signal that all was clear. She looked out the window, to see why servants might just want her. It looked to be noon, so she stayed in her room.  
  
Her thoughts strayed to the space-women. Militarian folk, heathens... No, no, that's not what she really thought. It's what she would say, but she has no heart to say anything to insult anyone. What really puzzled her, was a picture of a the Militia, all marching in five by twenty rows. That filled the streets, it did. It wasn't five people in a row, only for the five rangers, if they were there. No, there were twenty people in a row, elbow to elbow, marching the exact beat. One was smaller than the rest, and, a closer inspection it was... a woman! Smaller bone structure, and her hair was tied up and in a tight and complex knot that just fit at the back of her helmet, but the strands were noticible the way Prima was looking at them. It was so... odd, not normal. That was it. But it flashed to a view of a ship, and it seemed to scream at her... Destiny, destiny, destiny! Over and over and over, it hurt her brain.  
  
She often thought of what would happen if Michael would come back to the household for good. She would have to put her best foot forward then, but how good would that be? She was good at all of the womanly things, like weaving and sewing and cooking, but what would happen? Only time knew, and God. God would give her punishment if she deserved it, and she had already bourne triplets, they were slightly smaller than normal, but that was to be expected of triplets. They were all of brown hair, and two had brown eyes. One had blue eyes, like the Prima. It was comforting, but what would happen to them if the enemy came? Militia men and the Preacher told her to not deal with it.  
  
She wanted to know about Michael's thought on military procedures, and she wondered if they had captured anyone that they decided to make orphans. Cruel, heartless, she knew, but she never gave on that she actually had heard of these doings, because she knew the time would come that the injustice would end,and she wanted it to be sooner than expected. And that dream gave her an idea... What would happen if a female was disguised as a normal male to enter the military? Just long enough to learn things and come back, maybe more, maybe less. She just needed to have a female in the military. In her dream, the child was a girl with dusty brown hair and glimmering, big blue eyes. She was so cute, to see her in the military. She half hoped that the dream would show someone more hardy than that twig. She looked so proper and dignified, though. She could make a breakthrough.  
  
She just wished that it wouldn't be so hard! She knew that many NuTex colonies broke off from each other to form other Texan colonies. Our Texas never had anyone like that before. She wondered if she could convince Will, one of her sons, to ask for a book about the history of the first Texas, supposedly in the United States. She wondered how life was back then, and wondered also about the US's military branches. Did it allow girls to fight?   
  
She felt more and more brave at every thought. And yet, she felt more and more scared of her own thoughts. She knew what could happen if these thoughts came out, and it would be no good to her household. She knew what had happened to that blonde spacegirl.   
  
"But the space girl, they say, regained her voice..." A nagging voice in the back of her head whispered tauntingly to her.  
  
She just couldn't think about the procedeure, she might back out. She mustn't back out now! Not anytime! She had to get someone, a female, into the military, by disguise or by a new law. She needed to change this custom, she wanted to be able to touch and know what to do with this so called technology and these machines. She wanted to... to... have freedom, more than experienced here on Our Texas by women. She wanted to be able to defend her country, her heart was as brave as any, and her mind worked better than most.  
  
She must take her ideas into her OWN hands!  
  
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